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I wasnt always a journalist. I spent years in IT doing everything from help desk (the horror! The horror!) to programming to system administration to network integration. I was, if I say so myself, pretty darn good at all of it. Im also 48, and from what my friends tell me, Id have a heck of a time getting a job now. You see, Im too old.
I still have a lot of friends from my Beltway Bandit (Washington, D.C.-area techies) days, and they tell me that these days if you put your age on a resume and its greater than 40, youre going to be out of luck trying to find a job.
Its not just the people I know. Over on TechRepublic, Robb, a 55-year old network systems engineer, who also knows security, tells what happened when he tried, as an experiment, to find a job with a truthful resume.
He applied for 100 jobs over a two-month period, and got nothing. Then he changed his resume to indicate that he was in his 30s. He sent his new resume out to 25 companies, including some of the original 100.
Is management nuts or what?
Older workers have more real-world experience and savvy than any wet-behind-the-ears, newly minted MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer).
Theyre also a lot more likely, from what I know, to stick with a job rather than go jumping after the next attractive offer that comes around.
In short, all other things being equal, an older worker is likely to be a better worker.
Nowhere, I think, is this truer than in the reseller and integrator business.